


I Think It's Called Love

by Ellie5192



Series: Two Birds [3]
Category: E/R (1984)
Genre: AU, F/M, Fluff, Post-Series, SO MUCH FLUFF
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-11
Updated: 2013-03-11
Packaged: 2017-12-04 23:58:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,403
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/716538
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ellie5192/pseuds/Ellie5192
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Some people care too much. I think it's called love.” <br/>― A.A. Milne, Winnie-the-Pooh</p><p>She knows she’s falling for him. She can see that things like watching him in his sleep make her seem absolutely ridiculous, like a little girl with a pathetic crush. But she knows now that it runs deeper than that.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Think It's Called Love

**_I Think It’s Called Love_ **

 

She wakes up slowly, and for a moment thinks it must surely be a minute until her alarm goes off. The amount of times she’s woken up seconds before the grating sound is enumerable. Instead she can see that it’s still pitch black outside, the glow from the street light shining through the gap in the vertical blinds of her bedroom and throwing shadows of the trees outside. She looks to her clock anyway, and finds it’s just after four thirty. She’s only been asleep for an hour.

Beside her she hears soft snores, and she smiles to herself, shy and self-conscious, even in the dark of her own bedroom, in the comfort of her own bed. She registers a weight across her middle. Turning her head she sees him face-planted in his pillow, his arm slung haphazardly over her waist, his mouth hanging open. He’s quite adorable, she thinks.

They’ve been doing this for two weeks now. It still feels like a dream.

He’s been sleeping over at her place because of Jenny; she doesn’t want to make the girl feel uncomfortable, even if Howard’s living room is the size of her entire apartment. Her place is also closer to Houlihan’s, and after drinks with their people, it was just easier to go back to hers and finish what their continuous looks had started. 

She rolls onto her side to face him, trying not to disturb his arm. The light from outside gives her enough light to watch him by, and she tucks her hand under her chin as she settles as close to the edge of her pillow as she can manage. She can’t stop smiling; she feels sixteen again.

She knows she’s falling for him. She can see that things like watching him in his sleep make her seem absolutely ridiculous, like a little girl with a pathetic crush. But she knows now that it runs deeper than that. She’s known Howard for over a year, and their courting may have seemed rushed, but given how much they’ve confided in each other, and how many crises they’ve seen each other through, she thinks that the hard part about dating was over and done with before they even began. She knew exactly what she was getting in to, and she dove in head-first anyway. Even the fleeting attraction for each other’s siblings couldn’t dampen the pull they have on each other, or fool anybody otherwise. She thinks about Sam; about the perfect version of Howard, who was taller and younger and a marvellous kisser (though it honestly hadn’t gone further than that, sitting on her couch that one night). Even then, she hadn’t seen it working out with him, any more than it had worked with wonderful Robert. She can recognise now that it had nothing to do with either man; rather it had everything to do with the fact that they weren’t Howard. Being her colleague, and her friend, he’s seen a side of her she can rarely show anyone, and he cares more for her because of it. He gets to see a part of her that even her family don’t fully understand, and it’s both overwhelming and liberating to be so honest with someone about exactly who she is. She thinks the feeling must surely be mutual.

She reaches out and softly runs a finger down his cheek, before tucking her hand safely back under her chin with a contented smile.

Settling into her pillow she lets sleep take her again, knowing he’ll still be there in the morning. Before long she’s fast asleep, nestled under his arm, dressed in the flimsy sheet around her and nothing else.

He wakes to that sight many hours later, the mid-morning sun pouring through the same gap in the blind.

They both have to work that night, but one of the perks of working the later shift is getting a lazy morning, and he fully intends to take advantage of it.

He shifts to the edge of his pillow, placing him only a couple of inches from her nose. She’s sleeping with her head near the edge of her own pillow, her hand tucked under her chin, her other hand resting on the small space of bed between them. She looks so peaceful in her sleep. And so young. When she’s bossing him around, or helping him make sense of something, or working on a patient, he forgets that she’s a good decade younger than him. It’s never really been an issue between them in the past, and hasn’t come up in their relationship yet. He smiles at how lucky he is that he can share his life with a woman who has become such a treasured friend, and acknowledges that he’s falling for her, and fast.

Not that he had much further to fall in the first place.

She stirs, her eyelids fluttering, obviously registering the change in his breathing and the sun through the window. She’s a fairly light sleeper, he’s learned, and is glad that he now knows that about her.

She opens her eyes, and doesn’t seem surprised to find him so close.

He smiles at her.

“Good morning” he says softly.

“Morning” she whispers, voice heavy with sleep.

She closes her eyes again, takes a moment, then the hand under her chin comes up and rubs the sleep from her eyes and pushes her hair back. Her eyes open again and find his.

“What’s the time?” she asks quietly, as though unwilling to disturb the tranquillity of the moment.

“Just after eleven”

“Hmmm. Slept in a bit”

“Well, we did have a rather late night last night”

She meets his gaze, and can’t help but grin widely at that, rolling her face to bury it in the pillow. He smiles at the way she can be so bashful. She’s not a shy person with him, and she’s not timid in bed, but something about stating the facts; pointing out just what they’re doing, makes her react in the most un-Eve like ways, and he thinks it’s that more than anything that tells him that she’s as invested in this as he is. If she wasn’t, he figures, she wouldn’t care so much.

She readjusts her head to rest on the pillow again, but quickly changes her mind, leans forward and plants a kiss on his lips. He kisses her back with eyes closed, soft and brief. They’ve both got morning breath, and neither of them seems to care.

“I’m hungry” she states simply.

“So am I”

There’s a glint in his eye. She gives him a sly smile, and shifts closer to his side. Her hand comes up to cup his cheek as she leans in and gives him another slow kiss. They linger in it for a time, his hands coming around her, and she moves until she’s resting over him and lying on his chest. He’s a leg man, and appreciates hers like no one else, but his hands move up her bare back to thread through her thick hair, tangling his fingers against her head, revelling in the feel. He knows women do all kinds of things these days to make their hair big and bold. Eve has no need for any of it; the most he’s seen her use is hairspray. He marvels at just how _much_ of it there is, and how soft it is, and how it shines even after just waking, framing her face like a dark halo.

She breaks their kiss and smiles down at him.

“You love playing with my hair”

“Yes I do”

She grins and pecks his lips again. And again.

“I have a confession to make” she says, resting both of her hands on his bare chest.

“What’s that?”

“Don’t freak out” she warns, eyeballing him playfully.

“Cross my heart”

She considers him for a moment, sobering just a little.

“Howard, I think I’m falling for you”

Her eyes are wide; cautious but not fearful. Her fingertips are lightly playing with the hair on his chest, one leg thrown between his, and it’s because they are so physically close that he can feel her heart thumping fast and steady. She’s terrified and elated, and not at all sorry for being so bold. He flicks his eyes across her face, the hands in her hair coming down to rub lazy circles across her slender back.

“I think I know exactly what you mean” he finally mumbles, meeting her eyes again. 

She smiles, and kisses him again, the moment suddenly going from playful to tender.

“I’m glad” she says quietly against his lips.

She sits up with a sigh, pulling the sheet along with her as she holds it to her chest. He moans through a stretch as he raises his arms above his head and works the chinks out of his back. Leaning over the side of the bed the first thing she finds is his shirt, and she throws it over herself just as her stomach makes a long noise.

“Oh, you actually are hungry”

She rolls her eyes at him and shoots him a look over her shoulder, though he can see she’s holding back a giggle. He only shrugs at her, and no she didn’t expect any different from him.

As she slides out of bed he watches her, not at all surprised to find that the cliché image of a woman in her lover’s shirt is as hot on her as in any of the movies. Ace wasn’t wrong when he nicknamed her ‘Slim’, and the legs that he loves so much are on full display as she picks up his shorts from the floor and tosses them to him.

“Come on genius, I want eggs”

He watches her glide out of the room, a lazy and satisfied smirk on his face.

They quickly make their way to her tiny kitchen, and she takes her usual place by the toaster as he takes command of the eggs on the stove. It was a system they developed the morning after the first night he stayed over, and it’s been working just fine.

They sit at her little kitchen island on big stools, knees touching.

“So I was thinking…” she starts, shovelling a mouthful of toast in her mouth.

“Uh-oh”

She whacks him lightly with the back of her fingers, quickly chewing and swallowing her food.

“I was thinking I should come over to your place”

“Yeah?”

He seems confused.

“I think we should talk to Jenny about us. We’ve been going out for two weeks and I think she has a right to know why you’re sometimes not home”

“It’s only been a couple of nights”

She ignores the fact that he’s being deliberately dense.

“I know. But then it’s a couple more, and then more. Howard, we have to tell her about us some time. People at work already know-“

“You told them?”

“Howard, they’re not blind. Ace made a crack about us the other day, and then told me not to worry because nobody really cared. And besides, I think Julie caught us kissing in the break room the other day, and if Julie knows…”

He concedes her point with a sideways nod of his head and has another mouthful of egg. She considers him for a moment, absently pushing food around her plate.

“If you’re not ready to tell Jenny about us, that’s okay, but-“

“Hey, wait, no. No, it’s not that at all” he says vehemently, almost frowning at the implication that he’s somehow ashamed of what they’re doing.

“Then what is it?” she asks gently, putting her knife down in order to reach out a hand and place it on his arm.

“I want to tell Jenny. I do. And David. And I think you’re right- we should do it now”

“But?”

“I don’t know… it’s silly”

“It’s not silly to me”

She’s looking at him in that calm way she has, all poise and confidence, and it puts him at ease.

“I guess I just like being the two of us, you know? It’s nice to have our own little secret. You’re right of course- we need to tell them sooner rather than later. I just like having you all to myself, that’s all”

By the end of his speech she’s grinning into her food, a light blush on her cheeks.

“What are you smiling at? I sound like a crazy person; I probably _am_ a crazy person”

“You’re not crazy, Howard, just a bit neurotic” she replies, patting his arm and continuing to eat her breakfast.

“Yeah, well, I blame you for that”

She’s laughing at him, and it makes him smile in return, shovelling a huge mouthful of egg and toast into his mouth. It’s Sunday, and not yet midday, and he knows for a fact that Jenny is home today. He’s terrified, to be honest. Telling his daughter and son will make all of this so real. He wants it to be real more than anything and there is nothing about Eve’s demeanour that suggests she’s not totally comfortable with it. He’s seen her with his children, Jenny in particular. She’s well-liked by them, and he knows that Jenny will enjoy having a woman around who isn’t her mother- someone she can talk to almost as an equal; someone she can discuss things with that she doesn’t feel comfortable raising with him. He knew he was taking on a lot of responsibility when he agreed to let his teenage daughter live with him, and he knows that Eve has a way of relating his overprotective fatherly decisions to her in a way that makes sense.

It’s also incredibly overwhelming that she’s making the first move regarding his kids, and if he wasn’t sure about them before, he is now.

She smiles at him again from under her lashes as she stands from her stool and collects her plate. Moving to step around him and put her dishes in the sink, she stops next to his shoulder, leans in, and places a soft kiss to his hairline, just above his temple.

“I’ll take first shower” she says quietly.

He watches her walk into her tiny bathroom, dressed in his shirt and nothing else, and his chest feels tight and his breathing restricted, and he’s certain now that it’s love. 

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: I was listening to Joshua Radin while writing this one. Go figure. Also, given everything I’ve been writing lately has such angsty undertones, I’m turning this series fluffy, and I’m not even going to apologise for that. Even so, let me know how the characterisations are going, so I know I’m still on track.   
> As always, happy reading.


End file.
